Netflix is testing a way to hide your softcore porn and B movie viewing

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You have no idea how Diary of a Nymphomaniac or Battle in Heaven wound up on your Netflix viewing activity. It was probably the cleaning lady, your neighbor’s sneaky teenager, or one of the unnamed rabble that attended your last house party. Whoever is to blame, it’s there to say.

Fortunately, it sounds like Netflix is cooking up a system that would let you view movies like those — if you wanted to — without alerting the other people you share your account with. Yes, Netflix might be getting a porn mode just like your favorite web browser.

The company currently testing the feature, so it may be a while before it gets flicked on. Then you’ll have to wait for app updates to roll out to your phone, tablet, gaming console, set-top box, and Blu-ray player. But once that finally happens, you’ll actually be able to indulge in guilty pleasures without fear of being caught.

Things you watch while “Private Viewing” also won’t be used when Netflix calculates recommendations. That’ll prevent uncomfortable inquiries about why Bigfoot’s Wild Weekend ended up there or why Netflix thinks you like French movies so much when you claim to hate foreign films.

And presumably that means none of your Facebook friends would find out that you secretly can’t stop watching Wayans brothers movies and old Gray’s Anatomy episodes. You’ve got to believe that if Netflix is saying private they mean private — and that no automatic sharing will happen when you flip the porn mode switch.

That’s assuming it does happen. They’re only testing right now, after all, so you may have to stick to using two separate profiles — or paying for a totally separate Netflix account. Or, you know, watching all that other stuff on different streaming sites in your browser.